


Change Up

by MachaSWicket



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, rookie backpack, unexamined sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8320846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: SUMMARY:  The day after Ginny's first start, she and Lawson have a conversation about backpacks, traditions, and changing shit up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just taking a new fandom out for a spin, because baseball is awesome and I am here for Mike Lawson doing anything in his gruff, bearded way, and Ginny is the actual best. So. Yeah. Hey, y'all.

 

 

The day after her disastrous first start in the majors, Ginny is tense and embarrassed and angry. She barely slept, but she’s way too wound up to feel tired. She gets to the park early and works out, after carefully turning all the TVs in the weight room off. The music blasting from her headphones provides enough of a barrier for her to ignore her teammates and the trainers as they trickle in -- even when they flip ESPN on, where footage of her start plays on a loop. 

She runs harder, eyes on the wall in front of her, before tracking down Espinoza, the bullpen catcher, to throw a quick bullpen. She wants to throw more -- she wants to throw ten fastballs on the black at the knees on one side, then ten on the other, and she wants forty more to experiment with that change up grip that she’s _almost_  got. But they’re only letting her throw thirty pitches. She would argue but Skip already told her she’d need to be available in relief tonight, since her failures cost the bullpen nine innings of work.

Skip said it nicer. Barely.

Ginny avoids the clubhouse as much as possible. She’s definitely not in the mood for any comments from her teammates. She’s still standing, and she’s still here, but her confidence has taken quite a hit.

Dutifully, she changes into her game uniform and stops briefly in the clubhouse to dump her headphones in her locker. When she turns around to head up to the field, Lawson is standing right in her way like a big, lumbering roadblock. He’s got that annoying, know it all look on his face, and Ginny barely holds in an exasperated sigh.

“Forget something, rook?” he asks. Loudly. The guys sitting nearby glance over, and Ginny shifts uncomfortably under the attention.

She narrows her eyes at Lawson. “No.” She planned to keep her head down today, but she can’t do that with Lawson putting her on the spot.

“You sure about that?” he asks, crossing his arms. He tips his head to the side, and she follows his gaze to the sparkly blue backpack sitting on the floor by Jordan’s locker. 

The rookie backpack, filled with snacks and gum and small weights and resistance bands. 

Ginny turns a disbelieving look back to Lawson. “Are you serious?”

Lawson smirks at her, and it shouldn’t be charming, but something about his big, stupid beard makes it so. “Newest rookie in the ‘pen gets the honor of carting the snacks out there. Get it done.”

Ginny’s a starter, not a reliever, but since she’s gonna be out in the bullpen tonight, she’s _technically_  the newest rookie making the long trek across the outfield. It should be fun – a harmless bit of hazing that brings her more fully onto the team, but today, it feels like an attack. An effort to emphasize how out of place she is here.

A reminder that she’s a girl, and girls don’t play ball.

She’s heard it a million times, and it never fails to light that competitive fire inside her.

Chin up, Ginny steps closer to Lawson. “Is there any part of this that makes sense to you, Lawson?” she asks. “The sparkles and the--” She glances at the bag to confirm-- “Supergirl graphics are supposed to make Jordan, here, feel like less of man when he’s carrying it, right? Do you think that shit will bother me?”

Lawson shifts. “It’s tradition.”

Ginny snorts. “The last refuge of a man with no rational argument.” 

She sees the moment when Lawson realizes he’s struck a nerve. His demeanor shifts, softening somehow, and he lifts a hand toward her. “Hey, Baker, this is--”

“ _Tradition_ ,” she interrupts. “Sure, I get it. Make the guys carry something manufactured for little girls so they feel emasculated. All in good fun, right?”

“Baker--”

“But here’s the thing, Lawson:  I’m the only one in this room who’s _been_  a little girl. I got handed a softball when I wanted to play baseball. I got handed a pink backpack when I wanted the one with the Red Sox logo. I got told over and over and _over_  again that I didn’t belong, that I was ruining the game for the boys, because this game has _always_  been for the boys. Not for little girls with sparkly blue backpacks.”

“Hey!” Lawson is nearly shouting now. “Listen up, rook. This shit has nothing to do with you being a girl. _Woman_ ,” he corrects when she quirks an eyebrow at him. “You think we ran out to Target to find a girly backpack just for you?”

“I think you want to embarrass the rookies by associating them with _girly_  things, and I think you should take a second and think about why that sucks.” Ginny glances around in the sudden quiet; almost all of the guys are watching she and Lawson. She didn’t really mean for this to turn into a discussion of misogyny -- particularly not when she failed so miserably to produce on the field. What credibility does she have with her teammates yet?

“You want to be treated like one of the guys?” Lawson demands, and he sounds just as frustrated as she feels. “Then pick up that fuckin’ backpack and take it out to the bullpen, just like all the rookie pitchers before you. You don’t have to  _like_  the tradition, but you have to respect it. None of this is a shot at you.”

Ginny considers arguing more, but she knows the only way to convince the skeptics is to _play ball._ She needs to get guys out; she needs to _strike_  guys out. She needs to prove herself here, and then maybe she can make some headway on all the little shit she hears day in and day out.

In the meantime, if she wants to stay in the bigs, she’ll need the support of her teammates. Which means maybe she should just take the stupid backpack. At the very least, it has Supergirl on it. Not the worst thing to be associated with, all things considered.

“Tomorrow,” she says, as she strides over to the backpack and shoulders it, turning back to Lawson, “ _I’m_ going to Target and I’m buying the  _ugliest_  backpack you’ve ever seen.” Ginny steps closer. “I’m talking fluorescent colors, swirls, whatever I can find that y’all shouldn’t be caught dead with, and  _that_  will be my contribution to this little tradition.”

Lawson huffs a laugh. “Oh, yeah?”

Ginny saunters towards him, invading his personal space just a little. “Yup.”

“Who the fuck says a rookie can just waltz in here and change shit up?” he demands, and she can hear the amusement in his voice as he watches her.

“Didn’t you hear, Lawson?” Ginny pushes past him, heading for the tunnel and the field beyond. “That’s kind of my thing -- I’m changing shit up.”

She feels pretty good about having the last word, right up until she reaches the door and Lawson calls out, “Your change up is horseshit!”

Ginny flips him off and keeps walking. 

-30-


End file.
